OVERVIEW
Creative Process is a course available to all University of Michigan undergraduate
students. It provides a conceptual and experiential foundation for the cultivation of
creativity within and across academic disciplines. It is designed to prepare U-M students
to recognize, understand, articulate, and utilize their creative abilities.

More specifically, the course enables students to:

Recognize and demystify creativity, understanding that it is not the province of a
select few, but an inherent potential of all humans.

Understand that creative expression in any field is a process that can take many
different forms and has recognizable breakthrough moments.

Develop a first-hand knowledge of the interplay among creative impulse, media,
modes of expression, and shared meanings in the creative process.

Develop a conceptual and contextual foundation for understanding the creative
impulse and the processes for generating creative work, using examples from a
broad range of cultures, disciplines, and historical periods.

Become more confident and more creative makers and doers, able and willing
throughout their private and public lives to utilize creative process for positive,
productive ends.

U-M Student Audience
Creative Process appeals to a great many U-M undergraduates, all of whom have
considerable potential for creative expression, but only some of whom have much
experience deploying it. Students welcome a course with a focus on a skill they know
they need to survive in today's global culture.

COURSE STRUCTURE AND DESCRIPTION
Creative Process is a 4-credit lecture/discussion and studio/critique course with 4
sections offered by an interdisciplinary team of 8 faculty for 80 students. Led by a faculty
course coordinator, faculty members from creative disciplines collaborate in teaching all
sections. Over the course of the semester, students rotate through all four sections.

Lecture/Discussion Component
The lecture/discussion component provides students with conceptual, historical, and
contextual information about creative processes across a wide range of human
endeavors. Readings, films, and information in other media related to creative process
are assigned each week. Following a presentation about the week's assignment,
students participate in half-hour discussion groups of 10 students to discuss
presentations and assignments. One faculty member leads each 1O-student group.

Creativity has been studied in many disciplines, including behavioral psychology, social
psychology, anthropology, education, cognitive science, philosophy, cultural history,
complex systems, and business. Examples from many of these disciplines are
presented by guest faculty in order to establish a broad range of perspectives bearing
upon creativity.

Studio/Critique Component
In the studio/critique component, students create work in all four form categories listed
below, then discuss/critique as a group both the creative process and results from each
student.

These four elemental form areas are domain-independent; that is, they do not
necessarily engender expectations for results in any particular cultural domain. They
enable a wide range of possibilities and allow for carrying out creative work with minimal
facilities and resources. The four faculty teams each have particular creative expertise in
one of the four form areas listed above. Students experience working with four different
kinds of practitioners, and develop a sense of the vast range of options available for
carrying out their own creative work.

The objective of the studio/critique component of the course is to give students hands-on
experience in creative work through assigned projects. Specific parameters of the
projects undertaken in each section are provided by the faculty teams, and reflect the
particular form-focus of each section. Each studio module includes a variety of exercises
- some short, others longer. Short exercises are carried out in class, under the close
supervision of faculty. Longer exercises are carried out outside of class and brought to
class for discussion of process and critique of results. Both individual and collaborative
group projects are assigned. Faculty guide students through specific creative
assignments, helping them to understand, discuss, and develop their creative process.

Course Journal
Students record their experiences in a comprehensive journal, including lecture/reading
notes, project sketches, and culminating project plans. Digital documentation is
encouraged. The journal plays a key role in developing the culminating
project/presentation.

Culminating Project/Presentation
During the final weeks of the semester, students organize the documentation of their
semester's work and prepare a theoretical and documentary project resulting from the
overall course experience. The specifics of this assignment are dependent upon
resources and skills available to the student and the planning of the faculty.

Student Evaluation
Criteria for student evaluation include the student's

Syllabi are available to current LSA students. IMPORTANT: These syllabi are provided to give students a general idea about the courses, as offered by LSA departments and programs in prior academic terms. The syllabi do not necessarily reflect the assignments, sequence of course materials, and/or course expectations that the faculty and departments/programs have for these same courses in the current and/or future terms.

No Syllabi are on file for UARTS 250. Click the button below to search for a different syllabus (UM login required)